Conversational Summit On The Opioid Crisis In Utah

April 23, 2018 @ 12:30 pm - 5:00 pm

12:30-5:00 p.m., S.J. Quinney College of Law, Level 6
This summit brings stakeholders together to identify barriers that they face, explore strategies for addressing these barriers, and encourage practical solutions to effective treatment of pain, addiction, and their aftermaths.

The problems of opioid addiction and overdose are multifaceted. Solutions are urgent but encounter multiple legal and social barriers, especially in states with rural populations that lack effective access to health care and other social services. Many who play roles in dealing with these problems do not have effective lines of communication with one another.

Confirmed participants include physicians, pain specialists, addiction recovery therapists, child welfare advocates, pharmacists, defense attorneys, prosecutors, drug court representatives, poison control specialists, data specialists, public health officials, specialists in harm reduction, and many others to brainstorm how we could make changes to improve Utah’s response to the opioid crisis. We are especially interested in communication, administrative, and legal barriers and how they might be addressed. We will emphasize moderated discussion among stakeholders rather than formal presentations and have reached out to particular individuals to provide brief, 5 minute overviews of the obstacles they face in addressing the opioid crisis in Utah. The afternoon will begin with a luncheon presentation by Mark Tyndall, MD, British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, on “The Critical Role of Harm Reduction in the Opioid Overdose Crisis.”

We see this as beginning or continuing an essential conversation. All are invited to join in, but we request an RSVP for lunch »

Co-sponsored by the Center for Law and Biomedical Sciences at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, the Program on Medical Ethics and Humanities, and the Honors College

Free parking is available at the Rice-Eccles Stadium. We encourage you to use public transportation to our events. Take TRAX University line to the Stadium stop and walk a half block north. For other public transit options use UTA’s Trip Planner. The law school is on the Red Route for the University’s free campus shuttles (College of Law stop).